The Acrobats (22 page)

When she believed that he had rested enough, Jessie brought him a glass of cold water. He drank it slowly. He wanted to lie there for ever. Jessie lit a cigarette and slipped it between her lips.

“Feeling better?”

He took a long puff of his cigarette. She was seated on the edge of the bed. So calm, so unruffled. He envied her.

“You married me for my money, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And you hate me because I’m a Jew?”

“No, I don’t hate you.”

“Derek says you hate me.”

“How does Derek come into this?”

“Do you think it was fair?”

“No.”

“No. She doesn’t think it was fair.”

His voice was breaking. She did not want to see what was coming.

“I was very young,” she said. “I got my notice a short while before I met you. You could give me all the things I wanted.
I’m sorry, it was a mistake. But you didn’t really love me either, Barney.”

“I suppose I bought you with my money?”

“Yes.”

He laughed. “I worked so hard to make my money.”

“Do you want a divorce?”

“Divorce?” he said, his voice trembling.

“We might as well face it.”

He rolled over in bed so that she could not see his face or that his eyes were wet. “Always giving me the shit about the business, about how I skimped and saved. But it was good enough to buy you clothes and stuff, huh? Good enough to pay off the bums you hung around with? All that crap about your family. You didn’t marry below yourself. Your father was a crook. A crook, do you hear? Don’t worry, I know. I know a lot of things. My father may have been poor but let me tell you we paid our bills. We never took anything from anybody. Not even a crumb of bread if we were starving. So I’m a Jew, huh? Go ahead, tell me. I changed my name. Well, I was wrong. I only wish I was a rabbi or something, then I’d tell you. I’d quote facts. Just look at the job we’re doing in Israel! I was talking to a guy only …”

“I’m going out for a walk,” she said.

He started to get up. “Wait. I’m sorry. I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll see you later,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’m not angry. I just want to be alone for a few moments.”

He watched her go.

“Were you serious about the divorce?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

She’s going to André, he thought. He comes from a good family, he’s not a Jew.

Barney lay back on the bed and pushed the flowers away with his foot.

Seated at the bar in the Tango Club, Derek grinned tipsily at a brawny man who he thought was definitely gay. The man moved away and Juanito edged in beside Derek.

“You’re late,” Derek said.

“I’m sorry. I got away as soon as I could.”

“Well?”

“You were right,” Juanito said. “André has disappeared. He probably left with the Jew.”

“Splendid, D.J. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. He is my friend.” Juanito felt he was an important figure now that André had disappeared. Many people stopped him to ask for news of André, and always Juanito shrugged his shoulders, as if he knew but could not say. Toni, naturally, believed he was dead. But that, Juanito thought, was only because she couldn’t imagine him leaving her. “André is crazy,” Juanito said. “Imagine him running off only because of two hundred dollars. I can’t understand it.”

Derek laughed. “You’re priceless, D.J.,” he said.

“I did the best I could for him, but I never got so much as a word of thanks. He betrayed me for money! Have you any news from your sister and brother-in-law?”

The fiesta was over. Only the habitual drinkers idled about the bar. They were as pleased as children at a fair that their wonderland was their very own again, but there was one intruder to mar the gaiety of the reunion. A jolly man, who had missed his train to Madrid again, was guzzling champagne all by himself. He made the occasional announcement. His last one had been to the effect that he was more irresistible to women than anyone else in the Club. Then, his own laughter consumed him.

“They’re still here,” Derek said. “Jessie says that Barney is acting very strangely. He’s talking about going to Israel with the children. But don’t worry, they’ll make up again. How long has André been missing?”

“He didn’t show up at his hotel Monday night. It’s odd, he left all his things there.”

“Perhaps he’s gone off into the mountains to contemplate his navel?”

“Toni believes that he is dead.”

“Who’s Toni?”

“She’s his mistress.” Juanito noticed that Luís was watching them. He averted his eyes. “She says that we killed him and that he is in the river.” Juanito did not mention Guillermo to Derek. He did not want Derek to know that he had been questioned and insulted. He tapped his forehead and shrugged his shoulders. “You know how it is?”

“Oh shettup!” Derek said quickly.

Derek was angry. The past could not be truly erased. It was there, a shape in the darkness, lurking there always, waiting to leap up at him. He did not have the strength to resist Juanito or the love to help Barney but his heart still went out to André and the others.

Juanito flushed. “If you talk to me like that I will …”

“All right. I’m sorry.” He laughed. “If you only knew how sorry, D.J.”

Luís leaned over the bar towards Juanito. His eyes were hot and melancholy. “Why couldn’t you have told Guillermo what you knew?” he asked. “André was your friend.”

Derek turned to Juanito. “What does he want?”

“He’s a friend of André’s. He used to work for Chaim in the Mocambo Club.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Luís said. “Guillermo knows. Ask Kraus if he doesn’t know? Ask his sister?”

Juanito pushed Luís away. “You’re drunk.”

Luís trembled. “It’s his sister. She’s mad, I tell you. She …” He giggled. “She’s ugly.”

The man who had missed his train to Madrid called for another bottle of champagne, and Luís moved away sadly.

Juanito laughed nervously.

“What goes on between you and the German colonel?” Derek asked quickly.

“Are you crazy? What do you think I am?”

Derek patted Juanito’s cheek.

“Don’t do that here!”

“What about you and the gorgeous German?”

“Nothing!”

Derek looked around, but the German was nowhere in sight. Still, he was jealous. He required, as always, constant confirmations of love. “I got you a gift,” he said. “Here you are.”

It was a gold cigarette case. The initial J had been engraved on it.

Juanito pressed Derek’s hand. “Thank you. It is very beautiful.”

“Tell me that you love me.”

“Here?”

“They don’t understand English!”

“But I …”

“Quick!”

“I love you.”

The man at the bar got his bottle of champagne. He said, in a booming voice:
“Ole! Vivan los maricones! Arriba!”

“Shall we go?” Derek asked.

“Did you, I mean for my friend …”

“I brought you the money.”

“Let me finish my cognac, and we’ll go.”

Derek waited.

“Will you take me to America?”

“Of course, darling.”

And why not, Juanito thought? I am a Spanish gentleman and in America there are many wealthy ladies. If André can steal, why can’t I do this? It was very common among the great men of Rome.

“Hurry!”

“You promised to arrange everything. Papers, passage.”

Derek laughed. He raised his glass.
“Vivan los maricones!”
he said.

The man roared. His stomach shook.
“Viva!”

“Get more twigs. The fire is going out.”

  “The fire is
not
going out.”

“López has caught a frog. He wants to put it in the soup.”

López grinned boyishly and knocked a bit of ash off his new shirt. The sleeves were too long. They hung down over his wrists.

“Sometimes your jokes aren’t so funny, López.”

“The French eat frogs.”

“To hell with the frog! When is the soup going to be ready?”

All five of them were huddled around the tiny twig fire underneath the bridge. Juan, their leader, stirred the soup. The others held on to their tin-cans impatiently. The ground was damp.

“We have two new tenants tonight.”

Ortega giggled. “Send around the manager to ask them for their marriage licence.”

“I’m hungry!”

“How can you talk of food in a time of crisis?”

“Do you want our hotel getting a bad reputation?”

A car shot across the bridge. They sat silently until it passed.

“Are you afraid?”

“You can never tell.”

“It would not look so good for you, eh?”

“Aren’t you wearing his shoes?”

Old José, seated slightly apart from the others, shook his head. “It was wrong. A catastrophe is going to happen. I can feel it.”

“Quiet, you old fool!”

“What? Is God going to punish us?”

Renato laughed over-enthusiastically.

“No, not God. Man will punish us. We have sinned against man. That is dreadful.”

López made a sign of the cross. “Forgive me, Saint José.”

“Enough of this,” Juan said authoritatively. “Are you a bunch of old women?”

“Ruíz is worried about the body.”

“Body?”

“Who saw a body?”

“We have done a dreadful thing.”

“Shettup!”

“Wasn’t he rich?”

“It does not matter what he was.”

“Your two sons died in the war and now you worry about fascists.”

“My sons died so that things might be different.”

“Go ahead, tell us they died for the fascists.”

“The fascists are to be pitied. They do not know what they are doing.”

“They will suffer in the next world, eh?”

López howled with laughter.

“When they shot Julio it did not matter that they did not know what they were doing. They shot him and he is dead.”

“But we can’t go on this way. Don’t you understand?”

“We were just being kind. We thought he would be more comfortable in the cave.”

“Poor lad.”

“Sh!”

A small, worried man stepped out of the shadows. They knew him and they knew what he represented. Sometimes he gave them pamphlets to read. Often he came with others, and they passed out sandwiches, clothes.

“Buenas noches
, Guillermo.”

“Salud!”

“Would you like some soup?”

“No.”

Juan smiled thinly. “We haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said.

“I’ve been away.”

“How long have you been standing in the shadows?”

Guillermo sat down on the grass and lit a cigarette. He noticed Ortega’s shoes, but he said nothing.

“Have you been here long?”

“About ten minutes.”

Renato wandered around behind Guillermo.

“Sit down, Renato. Don’t be a fool,” Guillermo said quietly, his eyes brilliant and cold in the flickering light.

“I was just going for a walk.”

“Sit down!”

“Have you brought us any pamphlets?”

“I read the last one from cover to cover.”

“What did you do with the body?”

Juan looked blank. The men looked down at the ground.

“I want to see that he is properly buried.”

Juan stopped stirring the soup. “We know of no body,” he said.

Guillermo seized López by the collar. He pushed him up against the concrete wall and shook him back and forth. “It takes much courage and nobility to steal a shirt from a dead man,” he said. “Doesn’t it, comrade López?”

He let him go.

“We did not kill him.”

“I know.”

“He was dead when we found him.”

“It would have been better if we had killed him,” José said, “but to find him dead, another man, and …”

“What need had he of such fine clothes?”

“We are poor, honest men. You are supposed to protect us.”

“Where is the body?”

“In the cave.”

“I’ll be right back. Don’t any of you go away. Juan, I’m holding you responsible.”

They waited until Guillermo had disappeared into the darkness.

“Where would we go?”

The cave was dark and damp, moisture dripped from the walls. André lay naked on the ground. Not quite naked, for there were newspapers strewn about him. There were bruises on his chest and his abdomen had turned a sort of greenish-yellow in colour. His body smelled sweet and putrid. Guillermo was sweating and he had gritted his teeth. He lit a match, and looking into André’s face he saw that his eyes were drying and shrinking back into his skull. They were cloudy. His facial skin was grey and his mouth was shut. His expression was not angry or surprised or benign. It was exhausted but still somewhat eager. As if he was waiting for something which had not yet arrived but could be expected shortly, an abysmal something perhaps.

But Guillermo could only guess.

And guessing, he sighed also. He felt weak and discouraged. I’m not used to it yet, he thought. I wonder how many more times I will have to see it before I can get used to it?

Toni will be difficult, he thought. She will want to see him. He turned away from André. It is too bad that the Colonel’s sister has seen me so often, he thought. She knows that I am watching the house. That will also mean difficulties.

Ortega waved a lead pipe in the air. It was the first pair of shoes he had owned in eleven years. They fit well. “He is alone,” he said. “Just say the word, Juan.”

“Throw away the pipe!”

Renato spit. “He will have a fine job talking me out of the pants.”

“There will be a catastrophe. We have broken faith.”

“Quiet!”

Guillermo was pale. He held a handkerchief to his nose. “I thought that he would need a shave,” he said.

“Did you know him?”

“I want three men. I’ll get shovels. We are going to bury him in the cave.”

“It stinks in there!”

“I’ll come, if you like?”

“Have some soup first,” Guillermo said, sitting down. “Juan, have you any coffee?”

“Have some soup. It’s hot.”

“Do we have to return the clothes?”

Guillermo sighed. “I’ll leave it up to you,” he said.

“I’m keeping the pants. He doesn’t need them.”

Guillermo accepted a tin of soup. It was hot. He did not want the men to see that he was shivering.